Artemis vs Hades

Recap

Final week of Summer League. This is the week I’ll be giving you updates and reminders. Like for example:

UPDATE: Right now the weather report for Santa Clarita says 95º for this Saturday. Woohoo, way down from the 103 it was listing last week. If that keeps up, then games will be back to 13. Still hot, but bearable.

REMINDER:

TOGAS!!!!!

Bring your togas for the Toga Olympics after-party at JJ’s. There will be games set up in the back patio.

I know what you’re thinking. Andy, did you really just individually color each exclamation point? Of course I did.

And now, let’s get to the game. First up, here’s Joy Park-Thomas of Hades:

Hades and Artemis had a lot at stake this evening…namely, a shot at the first round bye. Given that Santa Clarita is forecasted to hit triple digits starting tomorrow, and to avoid the worst of the day’s heat, the first round’s start time is 7:30 am, both teams were envisioning themselves getting that crucial extra hour’s sleep. Ok, so maybe mostly me envisioning myself getting an extra hour’s sleep. But still. A win would lock it in for Hades, that that was the target I set our sights on.

Given this week’s powers included transforming the disc into a floppy round piece of plastic, Chris and I scoured our cabinets for all kinds of tupperware lids and threw them all over the kitchen like a pair of three year olds, only we really WERE testing for flight and distance. As you might imagine, playing catch with someone on crutches results in a lot of lids on the ground. I love having a big dishwasher.

Lids selected, we headed out to our only game at JAMS, where I learned we couldn’t take the field till 8:30, and would lose the lights promptly at 10. Given that the transformed tupperware lid point could eat a lot of time, Chris crutched over to Artemis and suggested we ignore powers for the evening, in the interest of finishing the game while we had lights. They agreed so, sorry Andy, there are no power play results to report.

Artemis won the flip, started on D, and took the first point looking all kinds of quick. Hades shot right back with three in a row, featuring Megan Timmerman making an endzone D somewhere in there. Cubby scored for Artemis then Hades rattled off four more. The wind was a factor, giving Artemis shots deep into the far endzone, where Snatch was sure to get it…if it would only stay in bounds. Artemis was missing a few younger legs like Felix and plagued with a rash of bobbled drops while Hades’ throws connected. With a slightly injured Fish hucking to Armand, Hades closed out the half 8-3.

Artemis switched things up after the short halftime, and threw zone. It forced us to make an awful lot of short throws, swinging back and forth waiting for a clear shot farther downfield. Unfortunately, a soft lob to Fish crashing through the cup before we’d even made it to half field was D’ed. Fortunately, Magic Mike had a magic D of his own and Hades converted the possession to a score.

It looked like the second verse would be the same as the first, with Hades scoring 6 points to Artemis’ 3 to make the score 14-6. Perhaps we got a tad complacent on game point. Perhaps the gods were punishing our hubris in mentally slacking off in the red zone. Whichever it was, Artemis cured their case of the dropsies in time to rattle off three sure-handed points in a row of their own. The goddess of the hunt had scented her prey and was gaining momentum, 14-7, 14-8, 14-9. Hades had lost its considerable lead, hovering at game point until Hades threw a series of short up the line tosses to hit field director Chuck for the final nail in the coffin to win 15-9.

It was a spirited game, with a particular dispute being one of my favorite moments of the evening: Artemis had thrown up the line to Snatch near the end zone. It was tilting out of bounds, but to be sure Snatch didn’t have a chance to live up to his name, Armand went up to swat the disc (ironically sending it farther in-bounds) and the two tumbled over each other on the ground like a certain pair of siblings we like to watch on HBO.

***SPOILERS***

Snatch and Armand sat beside each other, hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, sweating and panting like post-coital Lannisters, cozily discussing what had just happened, damned if they cared who saw. After a bit of chuckling by the rest of us, the disc was sent back. It was that kind of game.

So Hades hopefully gets the prized first-round bye, and after we all quit the battlefield, a handful from both teams, including the four captains, headed to Joxers for a last hurrah and hot wings. Now that’s what I call a season finale.

That’s too bad on the powers. I was really looking forward to seeing what kinds of plastic objects took flight this week, but I certainly understand.

Did you just refer to Felix as young? At 40? I LOVE it!!!

The win for Hades does indeed assure them of a first round bye. All of the 6-2 teams entering the week, Poseidon, Hades and Dionysus clinch first round byes with victories. Artemis’ chance for the first round bye rested on the win over Hades, but with the loss, they fall to 6-3 and alas will be up really early Saturday morning.

And now from Artemis’ side, this is Joanna Whitney:

When trying to come up with an idea for this recap, I came across this internet gem and really just felt the need to share with the community:

I really feel like this video represents Artemis last night. Yes we had lots of trouble holding on to the disc, but honestly, did you see how sexy that video is? Yeah. That’s how sexy Artemis is. That’s my take away.

Last night we had a serious case of the Mondays. And a serious case of JAMS and their stubbornness. Combine the two and Artemis’ sexiness flag struggles to fly. Oh it was still there, don’t you worry. Maybe just not as prominent as per youzhe.

Before the game, Chris Thomas came over and proposed we play a good old fashioned down and dirty game with zero powers because of the shortened time period. We agreed and were pumped to play some honest ultimate. I was a little bummed we couldn’t use our sneaky play of transportation where we’d have injured T-Tom just casually stroll into the end zone to be our ringer for that point and get the unsuspected power point, but c’est la vie.

Artemis came out strong on D getting the turn and the first point. Looking like a good night to earn a first round bye! That quickly went out the window as Hades started putting throws up left and right. Fish claimed he might be injured, but he sure looked fully healed by game time. No worries, Artemis will play that game and put everything deep too. Oh, your team is super fast and scrappy? What is this thing called wind that puts our deep shots out the back? Who knew eating sushi and pancakes for dinner before a game would make my stomach hurt? That case of the Mondays was hitting us hard.

Hades took half 8-3. Quite a bit of a hole to dig ourselves out of, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Starting on O out of half is my favorite thing. I know Andy disagrees based on stats, but what do stats have that my gut (full of pancakes and sushi) doesn’t? Yeah, what now Mr. Bandit? But, alas, I refer you to the video at the beginning of this post as the title explains most of the rest of the night. We threw on some zone and some backhand force man to keep things interesting, which worked pretty well, but our O couldn’t keep up with the sexiness on D. Can’t always have it all. That just wouldn’t be fair. Artemis managed to double their point earning in the second half to finish the game (and the longest last point ever) at 15-9 Hades.

My favorite call of the night was a foul call that got the response: “Just barely”.

The three amigos who have represented Artemis at the bar every night were there again, showing that just because you may not be the youngest on the team, doesn’t mean you can’t be the most fun. See everyone bright and early on Saturday. Will the sun even be up yet? I haven’t seen before 8am in quite a while.

Best line from that video is “you can have my rabbit feet and my bad ass human clone”. Naturally my first thought was “how’d they get the licensing rights to the Butterfinger slogan?”

So we’re at Joxers after the game and Joanna says something like, “It’s hard when your old guys show up and your young legs don’t.” I say, “Ah. Who was missing?” She says, “Felix.” So really, I was quoting Joanna calling Felix young. And maybe, relative to who came to the game, that could be true. He should milk it.